LORD Alan Sugar has sparked outrage after arguing the 2016 Brexit referendum should be “cancelled”, adding there is “no such thing as a good deal” as other EU countries are “only interested in what is good for them”.

Lord Alan Sugar has faced furious backlash after suggesting the first Brexit referendum, held in 2016, should be “cancelled”. The billionaire businessman claimed the 2016 Brexit vote should “never have happened” in the first place. Answering a question on whether he believes there should be a second referendum, Lord Sugar told LBC: “I think the first one should be cancelled, should not have happened in the beginning. I am told there cannot be a second referendum so I think it is academic really.”

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Lord Sugar also said earlier in the programme: “There’s no such thing as a good deal because the other 27 countries did not ask us to leave, as you know, and they are only interested in what is good for them, not what is good for us.

“I think what is good for them is to recognise that we as a country are a very good customer to the European Union and so I think they will agree, we have already agreed to free trade movements of goods between us and them.

“And allow us to ship our goods to them and allow them to ship their goods to us and free movement of people through passport control without having any Visa’s or anything like that.

“That’s about it, I think after that they are going to say that’s it, we are not giving you anything else.”

Radio host Chris Golds asked: “You are known for being a brilliant negotiator, what would you have done if you were in those meetings in the EU?”

Lord Sugar said: “I have no idea and I would not like to say that I would have done anything better than what’s done, because I do not know what was involved, I do not know the circumstances of what you are negotiating with.

“But when you have got 27 countries that say ‘we didn’t ask you to leave and so therefore we are not interested in what’s good for you, we are only interested in what is good for us’, that is a very, very difficult thing to overcome.”

Another said: “Let’s just ignore democracy, nothing wrong with that right??”

A third added: “Lord Sugar you are fired! WTO is the way to go.”

A fourth tweeted: “You’re fired.”

The comments follow Amber Rudd admitting the Government may need the support from rival parties in order to win next week's crunch 'Meaningful Vote' on Theresa May's Brexit deal.

But during a question-and-answer session following a speech to the disability charity Scope, the Work and Pensions Secretary refused to be drawn on what would happen if the Government loses the Brexit vote.

She said: "I hope and believe that the deal will get through with help from all parties potentially.

"We will have to see what happens the day after but I am planning for a successful future making sure that we do get the deal that we want.